To:HIS MOTHER AND HIS SISTERS MARIA AND ANNA

Published:First published in 1929 in the journalProletarskaya  RevolyutsiyaNo. 2-3.

      Sent from Shushenskoye to Moscow.

      Printed from 
 the original.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1977,

      Moscow,Volume 37,

      pages138-140.Translated:The Late George H. HannaTranscription\Markup:D. MorosPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive.You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work, as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.

December 21, 1897

Ireceived your letter of December 5 the day before
yesterday, Mother dearest. I am very, very glad that there
is a hope of Mitya’s business being cleared up. In any case it
is obvious that it is mainly a misunderstanding and that
there can be no question of anything serious. You ask me
whether I received a package sent on November 16—what
package do you mean? If, in general, it is possible to send
things to Minusinsk you should address them to me direct,
because my letters go through Minusinsk Post Office
anyway and I have given our postman power of attorney to
collect my mail.

Iseem to have got mixed up over all these packages you
have sent or intended to send me. Have you sent anything
to Popova in Krasnoyarsk? I think not, but just in case
I will ask an acquaintance who is going there soon (from
Minusinsk) to make
enquiries.[1]

Iam in no hurry for books. I now have so many that I
cannot manage them all, let alone more.

Yours,V. U.

Ireceived your postcard of December 2 and the two
Semyonov volumes.Mercifor them. I shall send them backsoon, not later than a week from now (I am afraid our
postman will not go for the mail at all on Wednesday 24th).

Thesefirst two volumes proved to be without interest.
Such things are, of course, inevitable when you order books
you know nothing about, and I was prepared for it
beforehand.

Ihope at least that we shall not have to pay any fine—
they will extend them for another month.

Idid not understand your sentence “To get into the
jurists’ library—I asked Kablukov about it—you must be
a,jurist and submit two recommendations from members
of the Society of Jurists”. Is that all? You do not have to be amemberof the society yourself? I shall try to get a
recommendation through St. Petersburg.

Iknow for a fact that one does not have to be a jurist
to join the society.

Allthe best,V. U.

Mercifor your letter of December 5 and for the list. It
is a pity you took so much trouble copying it a second time.
I seem to have expressed myself badly about the accounts;
it stands to reason that it is of interest to me to know
results—plus or minus so much—and not those details that
caused you so much trouble and nevertheless mean
nothing to
me.[2]

Itis strange that they do not send me any accounts from
the office of the journal. I am shortly sending something
else[4]there. I shall have to put a note in with it (when I
send the manuscript) asking them to send an account of the
fees and expenditure on the journals, etc. It seems that I
have overstepped the mark through not knowing exactly
how much I own.

Itseems that there was some misunderstanding between
us about my question concerning how the project for thejournal got into the hands of our
acquaintance;[5]I
understood that it came from you, and now I see quite well that
it did not. It stands to reason that what I said about my
first assumption does not hold now that the opposite has
been proved. Oh, that Yegor! I’ll give him what for.

Thephotos, including the group, have still not
arrived.[6]I have written to Nadezhda Konstantinovna but have
not received a reply. Should I write to Yuly’s sisters?

Bythe way, I received a letter from Yuly dated October
29 (sic!). He writes that he lives reasonably well, they
have all moved into one house (this is much more
convenient and cheaper and the meals are more easily arranged
at the expense of their one and only “lady”), they have
received their allowances so he is looking and feeling
better and is not a bit despondent. Our poet
friend[3]should
be coming to me soon for the holidays, if he does not let
me down again. Anatoly is still worried about his wife
who has been locked up in Yeniseisk (for three months),
the cells are cold and she has been taken
ill.[7]A bad
business! It would have been far better for her to have done
her term in Russia!

Fedoseyevand Lyakhovsky have not written a word.
The devil knows what’s happening where they are.

Ishould like to have Saint-Simon and also the following
books in French:

K.Marx.Misère de la philosophie. 1896. Paris. 3 frs 50

Fr.Engels.La force et l’ économic dans le développement
social.

K.Marx.Critique de la philosophie du droit de Hegel.1895.

allthese are from the “bibliothèque socialiste
internationale” where Labriola came from.

Allthe best,V. U.

[1]Itis not known who this acquaintance was.—Ed.

[2]Thisapparently refers, to financial settlements for literary
work.—Ed.

[3]G.M. Krzhizhanovsky.—Ed.

[4]Leninapparently refers to his essay “Gems of Narodnik
Projectmongering”, which he wrote forNovoye Slovo; he did not at the
time know that the journal had been suppressed   by the
government in December 1897.

In1898 the essay was included in the miscellanyEconomic
Studies and Essays(Collected Works, Vol.  2,  pp.  459–89).

[5]Ithas not been established what journal is meant. It is possible
that as early as 1897 the issue of another periodical was planned
in view of the constant persecution ofNovoye Slovoby the
authorities and of its shaky position. After the suppression ofNovoye
Slovoits place was taken byNachalo(The Beginning), which
appeared in the first half of 1899 edited by P. B. Struve, M. I.
Tugan-Baranovsky and others.

[6]“Leninwrote about these photographs to his sister Anna in a letter
dated May 25, 1897 (see Letter No. 25). He expected, moreover,
to be sent a group photograph of the leaders of the St. Petersburg
League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class
(V. I. Lenin, G. M. Krzhizhanovsky, V. V. Starkov, A. A.
Vaneyev, P. K. Zaporozhets, Y. O. Zederbaum, A. L. Malchenko),
which was taken in 1897 in St. Petersburg before they left for
Siberia.

[7]Thisrefers to D. V. Trukhovskaya, the wife of A. A. Vaneyev,
who was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment in St.
Petersburg; she followed her husband into exile and did her three months
in Yeniseisk prison.